


give in or just give up

by fistfight



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Dub-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fistfight/pseuds/fistfight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he were smarter, he would have known before, back when it mattered, that monsters only hurt you if you let them.</p><p>This is love, fragile and unbreakable at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give in or just give up

**Author's Note:**

> ok so the italics are meant to be past tense? if that makes any sense

Patrick can feel his wrists start to break every time his reaches for Pete, he can feel his heart beat twice as fast and his breathing getting louder.

His face flushes when people stare, and it’s worse when he can feel Pete’s scotch-brown eyes on him, following his body and his movements and the way his lips form the words he’s stuttering out.

“I love you, you know.” Pete says to him. They’re alone, outside. Summer in Los Angeles makes for pleasantly warm nights and good excuses to go for walks at two in the morning.

Patrick doesn’t say anything, but he can feel himself bite his bottom lip and swallow.

Pete’s not looking at him. He’s looking at the concrete sidewalk, he’s measuring how many of Patrick’s steps match up with his.

They are side by side, and they don’t touch unless their hands accidentally brush. Patrick wants to interlock their fingers but doesn’t know how he’d feel if Pete snaked an arm around his waist.

All the things Patrick wants to say are spinning around in his head and combining with each other, he’s getting a headache from absolutely nothing of importance and he can feel anxiety creep up though his bones and his vocal chords. He sighs.

“Are you okay?” Pete asks, right after the pause the length of a heartbeat.

“Fine. I think I’m tired. Or, you know. I think I forgot to eat today.” Patrick doesn’t know why he said that. He also doesn’t know why he forgot to eat, but his stomach was in knots all day and all he did was reread everything Pete’s ever written that he’s never sang.

“Again?” Pete asks. He sounds concerned, but Patrick’s known his long enough to hear the ghost of a disinterested monotone.

He goes rigid, and tries to loosen up but all his muscles are clenched from the past ten years of stress and he can’t seem to get himself to relax.

Patrick is painfully aware of how alone they are. There is no one here, except for Pete and himself.

They are nearly away from the residential district, close to a city with cars that travel even at this hour and a park with enough trees to block out the sounds and sights of inside the fenced grass.

Patrick says it’s late, they should probably get back.

-

Patrick closes his eyes but doesn’t sleep. He sees dots of light behind his eyes, surreally multicolored, and know he would be more productive if Pete weren’t still here.

He could be writing right now. He could be playing guitar or singing or writing poetry he and everyone else will call shitty.

What life experiences does he have to put into words? He was cheated on, he’s in a band, he’s gone through fucking close to trauma and was too lazy to do anything about it. It’s times like these he wishes he had Pete’s writing ability so he could take any small moment in time and write something beautiful about it, so he could string words together to make teen girls cry and to sort out his mind.

Pete is a quiet sleeper, and Patrick is not.

He wishes he were, so he wouldn’t have to worry about Pete listening from the other room, matching his breathing patterns with unconsciousness.

Patrick gets out of bed. He gets a notebook, and a pencil, because he’s feeling old fashioned, and he likes the sound his pencil makes; scratching words out in dead quiet.

He leaves the lights off.

He starts to write. Nothing creative. Just things he wants to say to people that he never will, letters to fans and her family and his band and then a whole page of things he wants to tell Pete.

He could.

He could rip out the page and slide it under the door.

Pete could read his secrets, the ones that he already knows, but just ignores.

Patrick could ruin everything and fix everything, too.

But he knows better than that.

It’s nearly light out; dawn is poking the the gap in his curtains, making a line of white through the darkness. Patrick puts his hand under it and notices the way his fair skin looks as white as the paper he curses.

Patrick shoves the notebook under the pillow and pretends to sleep for another three hours.

-

“Are you okay?” Pete asks.

Pete always asks that, everyday. Like Patrick constantly looks like his mind is not at peace, like something is visibly wrong.

Patrick smiles. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m fine.” He knows that Pete can’t fix the wrong. Nobody can.

He also knows that he looks as fine as he claims to be, and when Pete is concerned, he’s being just as paranoid as Patrick is constantly.

Pete reaches out to Patrick, one hand toward his shoulder, and Patrick nearly flinches.

Nearly.

He’s training himself. When he sees hands as claws and smiles filled with shark teeth, he tells himself the world has always been filled with monsters, and Patrick has just been too blind to see them. If he were smarter, he would have known before, back when it mattered, that monsters only hurt you if you let them.

Needless to say, Patrick gave permission to something dangerous dressed as a gift, wrapped in the essences of elegance and affection to mask the sharp edges underneath.

Patrick mistook shards of glass for diamonds, but both look just as pretty when the sunlight hits them just right.

-

_“Wait, I really don’t think I’m ready.”_

__

_“You’ll be fine. I love you.”_

-

“I love you, too.”

That’s the first time Patrick’s said it back in a week. He hears the words come out of his mouth, softly, like a song.

Pete smiles crookedly, his white teeth looking as straight as ever underneath. He takes Patrick by the neck and waist and pulls their bodies together. Patrick looks into Pete’s eyes and feels his cheeks flush and if he’s smiling like an idiot. Pete starts to kiss him, slowly and gently.

Patrick kisses back, feeling Pete’s teeth scratch at his bottom lip and wondering if he’s going to bite.

-

They’re in bed together.

Patrick looks at Pete, shirtless, half asleep staring at the ceiling.

He tells himself this is okay.

This is okay, after all. This is what couples do. They lay together and let their bodies intertwine, the feel each others hearts and try see how fast they can make them beat.

If this were a competition, Patrick would be losing, though. Badly.

He is still anxious and he still knows why, but he pretends he doesn’t.

“I love you.” He says. It’s the right thing to say, three words that he can prove himself with. He wants to be better. He knows he shouldn’t.

“I love you too, Patrick.” Pete says, and moves closer, so he’s closer, he grabs Patrick’s hand and then moves his body so he’s on top of him.

Pete looks down into his eyes. They are as intoxicating as the whiskey they mimic the color of.

They kiss, and Pete rolls his hips into Patrick’s.

-

_“You’re okay.”_

__

_“Yeah.”_

__

_“Am I hurting you?_

__

_“No. It feels-”_

-

Pete moves his hand under the waistline of Patrick’s boxers, and Patrick flinches.

-

_“Good, so good, oh my God.”_

-

Their lips are locked together in a kiss and Patrick can’t breathe, but he doesn’t think that’s the only reason.

-

_“Pete, can you -”_

-

Pete thrusts into him again, Patrick orgasms and enjoys it.

-

_“I don’t think -”_

-

“Patrick, you look so amazing like this.”

Patrick smiles.

-

_Pete grins back down and him, sweaty and exhausted_

-

Patrick’s in love, he’s in love with Pete, and his in love with his beautiful smile, and the way his teeth are straight and shiny and

-

_he’s reminded of shark teeth_

-

Nothing hurts anymore. This is love, fragile and unbreakable at the same time.

-

_It hurts when he draws in a breath, he can feel the ache in his lungs, in his heart._

__****  
  


_Pete looks into his eyes and he tries his best not to close his own._

-

“I love you.”

-

_Patrick doesn’t say anything._

 


End file.
